GiveWell lists its top charities here.
Currently it recommends giving to programs using two different methods to tackle malaria : 'Medicine to prevent malaria' and 'Nets to prevent malaria'.
This market will resolve YES if, by the end of 2022, GiveWell is recommending giving to a program to combat malaria that uses any approach other than those two.
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@Max_Goerlitz @Sjlver Unfortunately, because I failed to foresee the possibility of malaria chemoprevention following a different delivery schedule, there's no entirely fair way to resolve this, and I'm not quite sure which way to go.
From the title one would resolve it YES, while from the description one would resolve it NO. Alternatively we could say I've screwed up the market and resolve it 'N/A'.
If people would like make arguments either way in replies to this post I'll decide in the next few days. Apologies for my lack of foresight here.
@RobertWiblin thanks for being open to people's views. Here are my main thoughts:
I agree that no resolution seems entirely fair.
I'm leaning towards YES since this is how I would interpret the spirit of the question (see below).
Perennial Malaria Chemoprevention is actually quite different from SMC. For example, it targets different beneficiaries and locations: infants in countries like DRC, which would not be able to receive SMC.
"Medication against Malaria" seems too broad. For example, it would arguably include vaccines, even though they are totally different from GiveWell's existing recommendations.
While @JohnBeshir seems to agree with me and bought this market up to 77%, others seem more skeptical.
No hard feelings if you resolve differently though... It's all play money 😜
@RobertWiblin I vote N/A since, yeah, the title and description go different ways so there's no correct resolution, and I think it's generally good to be quite careful about avoiding resolutions that are nondeterministic based on the criteria (at least for markets on fairly objective questions, which this one is).
@tcheasdfjkl That's a fair point. I'd just add that the ambiguity was always visible, and people made bets despite that. There is one clarifying question about Malaria Consortium from three months ago, and the answer seems to be in line with the Market's title:
It would count if GiveWell decides it's fine for the money to go to not-nets and not-SMC.
@RobertWiblin I also vote resolving N/A because I agree that is not a good precedent to resolve markets based on „spirit“ or vibes but I would prefer clear criteria. You can create a new market with clear resolution criteria both for 2022 and one for 2023.
@RobertWiblin pls indicate what you think of Perennial Malaria Chemoprevention regarding this question? IMO it counts as "medicine to prevent malaria"!
@Max_Goerlitz This is indeed a good question. In fact, the title of this market and its description are a bit contradictory.
The spirit of this market, as far as I understood it, is this: will there be new ways to combat malaria that are sufficiently cost-effective to get a GiveWell recommendation? This seemed unlikely since bednets and seasonal malaria chemoprevention have been the only GiveWell-recommended malaria interventions since 2009 (AMF bednets) and 2016 (Malaria Consortium's SMC program).
Now, there is a new recommendation that is both a different intervention and is also carried out by a different organization (PATH). This is significant, and I'm super excited to see another emerging tool against malaria.
@Sjlver @RobertWiblin yeah, the description and the question title contradict each other in this regard. Maybe resolve ambiguously? Would be unsatisfying, but Perennial Malaria Chemoprevention should make this resolve positively if you only look at the question title and resolve it negatively if you look at the description and count it as "medicine to prevent malaria".
@RobertWiblin In the past, GiveWell made some other grants, for example to test RTS,S vaccines: https://www.givewell.org/research/grants/PATH-malaria-vaccines-January-2022
I guess that doesn't count for the purpose of this market? Maybe you could specify precisely whether we're talking about "top charities", all recommendations, or the GiveWell grants.